The Guardian

Martin Parr ’s father, Donald, was not just a keen birdwatcher; he also wrote the definitive avifauna of his home county, Birds in Surrey, 1900-1970. Published in 1972, it inspired the 12-year-old me to explore the birding hotspots around my suburban home, and helped shape my lifelong passion for birds and birding. I never managed to be any good at photography, though. Stephen Moss With my wife B…

The French fashion designer’s lavish Mediterranean villa was frequented by everyone from Dalí to Garbo to Stravinsky to Churchill. It has now been lovingly restored – with a thrillingly bolstered library It is the place where Salvador Dalí painted The Enigma of Hitler, a haunting landscape featuring a giant telephone receiver that seems to be crying a tear over a cutout picture of the Fuhrer. Con…

San San F Young’s passionate documentary records a vibrant creative scene that continues to resist Beijing’s repression Dotted with towering corporate skyscrapers, the skyline of Hong Kong attests to its global reputation as a financial hub; this image is profoundly challenged by San San F Young’s passionate documentary. Turning her camera to the streets and taking us into artists’ studios, the f…

Yes, we love our roasties – but have we really explored the spud’s potential as a gift, an aesthetic, a mood? All I want for Christmas is … the Nairn Museum potato flask . Showcased as part of the Highland museum’s virtual Advent calendar on Instagram last week, it’s a late-18th-century Staffordshire pottery flask – to be filled with strong drink and used to toast a safe journey for a traveller –…

Culture is not immune from the advances of the hard right – but it isn’t too late for resistance Into the pale stone wall of the Kennedy Center, above its elegant terrace on the edge of the Potomac river, are carved bold and idealistic sentiments. “This country cannot afford to be materially rich and spiritually poor. To further the appreciation of culture among all the people, to increase respec…

Trump praises Vince Haley, his ex-speechwriter tasked with creating Arc de Triomphe knockoff amid affordability crisis Amid concerns that he has failed to address a worsening affordability crisis, with health insurance premiums about to spike dramatically for over 20 million Americans, Donald Trump revealed on Sunday that his domestic policy chief’s main priority is building a triumphal arch for …

Howard Assembly Room, Leeds A TV cookery star becomes the main course, while doomed vegetables and a depressive egg create havoc, in this darkly comic show by the Scottish artist and composer David Fennessy at Opera North Spare a thought for Amy J Payne, the gutsy mezzo-soprano who plays the title role in Opera North’s Pass the Spoon. Divas, of course, are used to leaping from castle walls or bei…

The Grand Designs presenter and co-host of Tim & Kev’s Big Design Adventure on living with bats, the most important room in a house and eating fermented shark Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email There’s an aphorism that Australians only want to talk about two things – sport and real estate. Do you think we talk too much about real estate? In my experience, Australians never talk about rea…

National Trust looks to halt construction, claiming Trump tore down historic East Wing without needed permission Donald Trump is facing a federal lawsuit seeking to halt construction on his $300m White House ballroom , with historic preservationists accusing the president of violating multiple federal laws by tearing down part of the iconic building without required reviews or congressional appro…

Russian airstrikes on Kyiv, floods in Indonesia, the IDF in Gaza and the Nutcracker in Nairobi: the past seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists Continue reading...

The University of Leeds complex was a prototype for the Barbican – and the work done to it over time demonstrates how brutalist buildings can be humanised, writes Alan Radford I read with interest about the refurbishment plans for the Barbican ( Barbican revamp to give ‘bewildering’ arts centre a new lease of life, 5 December ). I spent more than 30 years working on the prototype – the large comp…

The brutalist arts-and-towers complex, where even great explorers get lost, is showing its age. Let’s hope the 50th anniversary upgrade is better than the ‘pointillist stippling’ tried in the 1990s The Barbican is aptly named. From the Old French barbacane , it historically means a fortified gateway forming the outer line of defence to a city or castle. London’s Barbican marks the site of a medie…

Artists explore insomnia and snoozing, sculptors imagine alternative futures and we look back with a great British photographer – all in your weekly dispatch To Improvise a Mountain Painter Lynette Yiadom-Boakye portrays fictional people in made-up settings. Where does she get her haunting ideas? Here she reveals her inspirations from Walter Sickert to Bas Jan Ader. • MK Gallery, Milton Keynes, u…

In her complex works, the Polish artist manipulates images of male nudes to comment on masculine power-plays and female emancipation To give people a sense of her evolution, the lauded Polish artist Zofia Kulik likes to compare two of her creative milestones. The first was the centrepiece of her earliest exhibition as a solo artist in 1989 , where she debuted her groundbreaking, technically compl…

Unfettered love for late photographer in France and elsewhere stands in contrast to occasional reservations in UK The death of Martin Parr , the photographer whose work chronicled the rituals and customs of British life, was front-page news in France and his life and work were celebrated as far afield as the US and Japan. If his native England had to shake off concerns about the role of class in …